Adversaulting

It seems that there’s just no getting away from advertising any more. No matter which way you turn, there’s a message coming at you to buy, buy, buy. No money? No problem! And never mind that most of what you buy today will end up in a landfill (or worse) tomorrow…

But except for the tv in your home, most of the advertising you’ve had to contend with has been of the passive variety. And although I’m sure that at least some of that has to register on a subconcious level, it’s been relatively easy to tune it out of our conscious thoughts most of the time. Well, I hope you enjoyed that, because advertisers are about to get a lot more aggressive. They aren’t happy that you’ve been tuning out…

“On the wall beside the front counter at 7:30 in the morning is a TV screen tempting Tim Hortons customers to pick up a breakfast sandwich in addition to the double-double they came in for…”01

“In advertisers’ sweetest dreams, audiences are captive: monkeys in a cage, fish in a barrel.”02

Big-box retailer Wal-Mart Canada “is working with ShopCast, a subsidiary of London, Ontario based EK3 Technologies Inc., to install and develop original content to be shown on digital monitors. Also known as “narrowcasting,” the … programming will … include national Wal-Mart advertisements and information specific to each individual store. This unique concept will allow commercials to run and alternate every 5-7 minutes on not only products and product specials that are carried by Wal-Mart, but also the services provided by … within those Wal-Mart locations. These narrowcasts will be broadcast on conveniently placed television screens throughout Wal-Mart.”03

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This entry was posted on February 15, 2008 at 1:44 am and is filed under Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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